Recognizing the need for understanding native theories of mental illness and folk curing as advanced by students of ethnopsychiatry, and following the suggestions in folkloristic studies of the function of mythology in an individual's life, I would like to focus on a particular problem - the relationship between mythology and mental illness in a specific cultural setting. The field study of this proect will be conducted in Kalibo, Aklan, Philippines where I grew up. This urban town with its 17 outlying rural villages, like all other towns in the province, has no facilities for mental patients. Moreover, mental illness is believed to be the province of folk curers (curanderos), consequently the mentally ill live in the community and are treated by folk healers. My preliminary field work in Kalibo, Aklan suggests that the fantasies of the mentally ill contain mythological motifs which are found in the oral literature. Furthermore, as studies of child-rearing in the Philippines reveal, mythological figures have a definite role in the socialization process. Therefore, there should be a relationship between fantasies verbalized by the mentally ill and the traditional narratives told by parents to their children. To test this hypothesis a field study is proposed. Using anthropological and folkloristic methods (interview, observation, participant observation) I will gather the following documents: (1) oral narratives told by parents to their children to be obtained from the parents, (2) fantasies about mythological figures narrated by the mentally ill to their curers and relatives to be collected from both groups. No interviews of the mentally ill will be sought. An analysis of the data will be based on various approaches to folklore studies mainly anthropological and sociopsychological, and in particular, on studies of childrearing and personality development in the Philippines. A description of the relationship between the traditional tales told by parents to their children and the fantasies which the mentally ill verbalize to their curers and relatives should have significant implications on various fields such as (1) traditional verbal art, (2) child-rearing and personality development, (3) ethnopsychiatry, and (4) the interactions of the above.